The Place Where You Dwell (Psalm 43)

¹ Vindicate me, my God,
and plead my cause
against an unfaithful nation.
Rescue me from those who are
deceitful and wicked.
² You are God my stronghold.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?
³ Send me your light and your faithful care,
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell.
⁴ Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.

⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

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The words “unfaithful nation” jumped out at me today.   My thoughts went from these words to thinking about all the challenges of being the people of God and the church of God in our nation today.  And to think that actually we have it much better in this nation than many Christians around the world!  It’s very discouraging.  So I can relate to the sentiment and prayer of this psalm.

But there does the Psalm lead us?  Where do we find “joy and delight”?  The psalm mentions going to the holy mountain, God’s dwelling, and rejoicing at His altar.  At the time this was written, it clearly referred to the temple in Jerusalem, where heaven and earth overlap, and God’s gracious presence dwelt in a special way.

What does this mean for us?  Where is the holy mountain?  The gracious presence of God.  Yes, we can apply it to worship when we gather as brothers and sisters.  But the gracious presence of God, the overlap of heaven and earth, is with us whenever we meditate on the Word, when we go to God in prayer, when we gather with other Christians to seek the Lord and pray together.

The point is that when we find the world we live in discouraging, we go to the “holy mountain” of God’s presence and take comfort in the fact that our joy and delight and hope are found there.

So this psalm did lead me to pray for our nation, for our leaders, for those aspiring to leadership, that God would lead, influence, and be glorified.  But I also prayed that the joy that I have in Christ would override any discouragement that I feel.

 NOTE:

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